SPELT
The soft flavours of spelt lend themselves to honey, sunflower seeds and yoghurt. Making 100% sourdough boules with spelt flour can be challenging. I don’t even try it. It feels wrong. It’s like trying to get a classic car to go 100mph; it shows a total lack of understanding about how to coax the best out of an ancient grain. To understand the charm of spelt is to increase the flavour of your bread, and the openness of your crumb structure. I use this flour in all my bakes to blend with.
Spelt is the mother of all bread wheat. In biological terms its grandmother is Einkorn and its mother is Emmer, and so this is the moment at which things changed because until this point the flours made with these ancient grains were not “strong.” Just remember though that Neolithic man wasn’t celebrating big holes! We will discuss more about spelt and explain more about the nuances of the protein.
You can, if you want, change your starter to spelt this week. Please see the video below. To convert just change your flour in your existing starter, but be warned it is faster and you need to change the timings and temperature of your refreshment process!
Syllabus for Spelt Flour
Total Time: 3 hours and 55 minutes
| Lesson | Lesson Type | Time (mins) | What you will learn | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1: Spelt | Feature | 10 | Feature on spelt |
| 2 | 1: Change your starter to Spelt | Task | 15 | Spelt is trickier...but amazing to use |
| 3 | 1: The differences in the composition of flours | Background Knowledge | 10 | Examine the differences in the composition of flours |
| 4 | 1: TASK: Honey & Spelt Tin Loaf | Task | 60 | How different brands behave differently. |
| 5 | 1: A Spelt Focaccia | Classic Recipe | 90 | A large family size Spelt Focaccia |
| 6 | 1: Spelt dog biscuits | Classic Recipe | 20 | Dog biscuits use up the discard |
| 7 | 1: A recipe for Spelt Waffles | Classic Recipe | 15 | Use up your discard |
| 8 | 1: A podcast with John Letts | Background Knowledge | 10 | A wonderful podcast from 2013 full of great information |
| 9 | 1: A study on the nutritional Values of Spelt | Research | 5 | The nutritional analysis of spelt |
